2014-2015 URM Cycle Results - IN/OUT/WL Forum

[WeeBey]

Type of URM: North African

GPA: 4.0/4.15 weighted

LSAT: 168

Softs: K-JD, extensive undergraduate employment including managerial experience, lots of leadership/involvement, Rhodes finalist, Fulbright finalist, unique story (home foreclosure/homelessness/homeschooled), extremely strong letters of rec.

Advice: Take a deep breath. Everyone else in this is going to cover the logistical pieces far more thoroughly that I could even hope to, so I'll leave that to them. My advice is to breathe and be mindful of this process while you can. Take this process seriously and you are going to end up doing something incredible; freaking out every moment of every day between now and your financial aid letters next fall won't accomplish anything for you.

Beyond that, though, I can honestly say that it's worth it to really muster the extra money to apply to as many schools as possible. I was funding it all myself, so I didn't blanket the T14 and I wish I had. Although I am incredibly happy with what I ended up with, scholarship and opportunities may have been missed, and it's absolutely worth an extra couple hundred dollars in the short term for the extra chances you're giving yourself.

IN:
University of Missouri (withdrawn)
University of Texas (withdrawn)
University of Minnesota (withdrawn)
University of Michigan
Columbia
UCLA (withdrawn)
UC Berkeley

OUT:
None.

WAITLISTED:
Penn (withdrawn)
UVA (withdrawn)
Harvard
Stanford

PENDING:
None.

ATTENDING:
Most likely UC-Berkeley because they've offered me close to a full ride. I will ride the wait lists for Harvard and Stanford until I sign a lease and make a serious financial commitment to Berkeley.

This has been a hell of a process.

Congrats, everyone, on your hard work and earning your places at top schools.

Im not a 100% sure, but aren't North Africans considered caucasian and thus not URM? Either way, great cycle and enjoy the Berkeley with $$$$$!

[180kickflip]

^I think you're thinking about South Africa

[PoopNpants]

Nah I think wee-bey brice is correct, since black people are only really considered if they are descended from the "peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa". Like Libya and Egypt are more considered arab-ish as opposed to fitting the definition of "Black people"

[cc78]

Is it just me or did a ton of black folk get into Yale this cycle? I really hope all y'all come--we are gonna have a blast!

[180kickflip]

Nah I think wee-bey brice is correct, since black people are only really considered if they are descended from the "peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa". Like Libya and Egypt are more considered arab-ish as opposed to fitting the definition of "Black people"

I hear you, but none of those distinctions really matter for the URM bump as far as I can tell. If a person feels like they are black/African American and they have identified as such in the past, then they can check that box and receive the bump.

Only situation I can see being a bit confusing would be a white American whose family is from South Africa. They could check "African American" due to their nationality and ethnicity, but they probably would not get the URM bump due to their race.

[maroon175]

Nah I think wee-bey brice is correct, since black people are only really considered if they are descended from the "peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa". Like Libya and Egypt are more considered arab-ish as opposed to fitting the definition of "Black people"

I don't know... there are a range of ethnic groups in North Africa. Some groups appear more Arab or Caucasian looking, but there are also North Africans who look "black". Google image search "Libyan people" or "Sudanese people" for an example of the ranges I'm referring to.

[WeeBey]

Nah I think wee-bey brice is correct, since black people are only really considered if they are descended from the "peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa". Like Libya and Egypt are more considered arab-ish as opposed to fitting the definition of "Black people"

I hear you, but none of those distinctions really matter for the URM bump as far as I can tell. If a person feels like they are black/African American and they have identified as such in the past, then they can check that box and receive the bump.

Only situation I can see being a bit confusing would be a white American whose family is from South Africa. They could check "African American" due to their nationality and ethnicity, but they probably would not get the URM bump due to their race.

Yea your right, all that really matters is which box OP checked. On LSAC it had Black/African American, and it also has White/Caucasian which further allows OP to check European/Middle Eastern/ Northern African.

[Harvette]

Is it just me or did a ton of black folk get into Yale this cycle? I really hope all y'all come--we are gonna have a blast!

How many have u counted? I am wondering if the pool is smaller this year.

[cc78]

So, looking back, we have:

me
Neurotic
Compass
ChiefMango
do_re_mi
BKAllday

That's six and I remember from a little digging I did a while back that only 7 black folks in the past 5 years total reported a Y acceptance on LSN. Could be that more folks are coming to TLS or could be that Y is adjusting its strategy a bit--that was something I heard a lot about when I visited..."we need more black folks here".

[DiniMae]

So, looking back, we have:

me
Neurotic
Compass
ChiefMango
do_re_mi
BKAllday

That's six and I remember from a little digging I did a while back that only 7 black folks in the past 5 years total reported a Y acceptance on LSN. Could be that more folks are coming to TLS or could be that Y is adjusting its strategy a bit--that was something I heard a lot about when I visited..."we need more black folks here".

Who said they need more? Someone from the admit staff?

[cc78]

So, looking back, we have:

me
Neurotic
Compass
ChiefMango
do_re_mi
BKAllday

That's six and I remember from a little digging I did a while back that only 7 black folks in the past 5 years total reported a Y acceptance on LSN. Could be that more folks are coming to TLS or could be that Y is adjusting its strategy a bit--that was something I heard a lot about when I visited..."we need more black folks here".

Who said they need more? Someone from the admit staff?

LOL maybe you got me, Dini, it was other students, so grain of salt I guess.

[LSATneurotic]

So, looking back, we have:

me
Neurotic
Compass
ChiefMango
do_re_mi
BKAllday

That's six and I remember from a little digging I did a while back that only 7 black folks in the past 5 years total reported a Y acceptance on LSN. Could be that more folks are coming to TLS or could be that Y is adjusting its strategy a bit--that was something I heard a lot about when I visited..."we need more black folks here".

Who said they need more? Someone from the admit staff?

LOL maybe you got me, Dini, it was other students, so grain of salt I guess.

I recently heard from a 0L that Yale's yield % from AA admits is significantly lower than the overall yield. sorta' interesting

[steven21]

Longtime Lurker. Spoken to 90convoy txdude45 and others through PMs

Type of URM: AA Male

GPA: 3.60-3.63

LSAT: 160-163

Applied Early January

IN:
UVA (60k)
Northwestern (45k)

OUT:
YLS
HLS
SLS
Berkeley
Gtown

WAITLISTED:
CLS (had an interview)
UChi (had an interview)
NYU
Penn
Duke
Mich
Cornell

[BillClinton Jr]

Type of URM: African American/Vietnamese
GPA: 3.6

LSAT: 157

Softs: 1 year work experience (graduated in December = 3.5 years UG), 2yrs research experience, jobs since high school with promotions, work full time at my UG university and received promotions, advisory committee to the Dean, student government, mentor, a few awards, Honors, double major, heard disciplinary cases for the Dean, intern, NCAA compliance board for my UG university, grade appeal committee, Ambassador for the college

Advice: Start early. Study for the LSAT early, poach people for letters of rec (tell them what you want them to write and make sure you read each one until it is what you want), take a fine toothed comb to all components of your applications and get your applications in early.Go to your school's law school fair and get fee waivers, I applied to 18 schools and only paid for 2 applications. Also, solicit fee waivers.

IN:
Boston University $90k
Wash U
Iowa - Full Ride and Research Position
Boston College
Michigan State - Full Ride
Creighton - Full Ride
St. Louis - Full Ride
Ohio State - $70k

OUT:
Michigan
Chicago
Virginia
Georgetown

WAITLISTED:
Northwestern (Held and still waiting for a real decision - riding it out)
Penn (riding this out as my first choice)
Emory (withdrew)
IU - Bloomington (withdrew)

PENDING:
Cornell (withdrew)
UCLA (withdrew)

ATTENDING:
Lord willing, Penn but we will see. Hoping this waitlist thing pays off.

This process has been mentally and emotionally draining and I dread doing it again this fall so please Penn, LET ME LOVE YOU!!!!


Good luck to you all, you all are amazing candidates and will do great things!

[lebeaudiable]

Bump to see more updates

[FirmBiz]

Type of URM: African American
GPA: 3.3

LSAT: 154

Softs: Interned for a sports agency, best undergraduate scores came from economics, business and legal courses.

Advice: Don't play it safe, if I could do things over again, I wouldn't have applied to half the schools I did and would have applied to higher ranking programs as I could have had a decent shot in. Only got rejected once. All the schools that waitlisted me came as a surprise, good or bad. Aim for the stars. I had way too many safe schools, CUA, American, Northeastern, Pace, etc. all that money could have gone to some more top 50 institutions, but I played it too safe because I didn't do enough research.

If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have applied to: CUA,Pace, American, Baylor,UCONN,St. John's or Penn state. Would have applied to UT, SMU, Wake forest, etc.

Don't do what I did, aim high.

IN:
Hofstra-Full
Pace-27k
Northeastern
UCONN
Baylor-22.5k
Cardozo-85k
Brooklyn-27k
CUA
American
USD

-Can't remember all the $$$, but in most cases, it was between 10k and half tuition.

All figures above are the 3 year totals


OUT:
Fordham

WAITLISTED:
UNC
UH
GMU
WUSTL

Waitlisted and Withdrawn/Ignored:
Penn State (both programs)
St. John's


ATTENDING: Cardozo unless one of the higher ranking wait listed schools, not named GMU, accepts me and the numbers look good.

[BillClinton Jr]

bump

[ltowns1]

Just curious for those who may still keep track of this thread, for those who only had 1 score listed, was that your only time actually taking the test, or was it your highest score?

[BillClinton Jr]

Where are all the URMs at? This thread really died down

[PoopNpants]

Where are all the URMs at? This thread really died down

[180kickflip]

The LSAT/ PS/ DS / LOR / application / negotiation / deposit process is long and pretty exhausting. You don't really realize how much applying to law school can dominate your life until it's over. At that point, focusing on work to minimize debt or going totally off the law school grid and backpacking in Europe or something makes a lot of sense (and may be necessary to maintain sanity). If you have any Lsat takes left, I'd suggest ignoring TLS completely and focusing on those.

[Flokkness]

Where are all the URMs at? This thread really died down

A few cats got SEO and I think the rest of us are probably trying to enjoy these last two months before all hell breaks loose.

[PoopNpants]

Where are all the URMs at? This thread really died down

A few cats got SEO and I think the rest of us are probably trying to enjoy these last two months before all hell breaks loose.

Is SEO real hard to get? Don't really know much about it

[Flokkness]

Is SEO real hard to get? Don't really know much about it

Read this first: http://www.top-law-schools.com/urm-appl ... grams.html

It's an amazing program to participate in, by all reports. But, it is very competitive with an abundance of programmatic preftige whoring. On a cynical note, SEO is a low risk, low reward operation in that it renders career aid primarily to the minority law students least likely to need that aid. On a cheerful note, SEO offers top minority law students a better crack at biglaw and a summer of paid experience which can't be gotten elsewhere before law school in most cases. Whether that's a good thing or a no-thing for you as a prospective 0L depends on where you land relative to said preftige in your admissions cycle. In short, apply and take it if you get it.

If you take a stab at SEO next cycle definitely do read previous years' threads and ask around for advice. Some awesome TLS peeps got seats this year and there's a lot of discussion about the program here in general that AFAIK can't be found elsewhere.

[ltowns1]

I figured most folks are probably enjoying their last bit of freedom lol